Monday, September 1, 2008

France Ready To Expand Drug Policy

When ESPN.com writer Ryan McGee penned a story about Aaron Fike, it took many fans and NASCAR team members by surprise. The words "heroin" and "NASCAR" had not really been heard together before. Click here to read the story.

When McGee appeared on ESPN2's NASCAR Now and spoke about the reality of this Craftsman Truck Series driver using illegal drugs on race day, it shook the sport to its core.

In a follow-up column (click here), we tried to motivate the NASCAR Now reporters to keep this story on the front burner. Unexpectedly, we got some very strong help from many Sprint Cup drivers who did not mince words when asking for a random testing policy on race weekends.

Owners like Rusty Wallace and Ray Evernham talked about their existing drug testing policies and how the world had changed from a time when hangovers from a late night at the bar were often a driver's only challenge.

The drivers recently banned for life or suspended from the sport are a diverse bunch. Their drugs of choice were also diverse. While this story had a shelf-life of a couple of weeks, it faded into oblivion because of NASCAR's stalling tactics where a modern drug testing policy was concerned.

One point to remember in all of this is how much time and effort ESPN recently spent on speculating about driver changes and posting "good guesses" online about where someone like Ryan Newman or Martin Truex Jr. was going just to "scoop" the competition.

The second point is how SPEED ignored the drug testing issue except for a brief mention on RaceDay and a comment on Wind Tunnel. SPEED has no dedicated news program that focuses on NASCAR during the week and on the weekend the focus is on the happenings at the racetrack.

Hopefully, the company where you work has a random drug testing policy and offers confidential assistance to those who fall into the pattern of addiction. Most of us had to be screened and agree to random testing even prior to our first entry-level jobs.

This issue is not about steroids. It is not about taking amphetamines before a race like baseball players do before a game. It is not about pain-killers for a nagging injury when an athlete makes the decision to take an injection and then play.

The question raised by McGee and pursued briefly by the media was about the use of illegal or prescription drugs and the effect on the workplace. In this case, the workplace happens to be going very fast and pit road happens to be very dangerous.

France talked to veteran reporter Jim Utter of thatsracin.com on Sunday. "We will be looking at broadening testing, even though we have a lot of latitude today," said France. "We're going to broaden it. The circumstances around all of sports have changed in the past three, four or five years. We need to be mindful of that."

As some media observers note, France and NASCAR have not been mindful of that in the past and were considering no changes until the ESPN the Magazine article and NASCAR Now appearance by McGee shocked the sport. Heroin is a strong word. It is made stronger when the addict was racing with the drug in his system in a top level professional NASCAR event.

Perhaps the E:60 news magazine or Outside the Lines program with Bob Ley would be a good place for France or Mike Helton to present themselves to the fans and explain what they are about to change for 2009 and why it took the media to force these changes.

Fike told McGee that no one from NASCAR had ever followed-up about his addiction problems since his heroin arrest. Maybe, the reality of random testing would have saved Fike's career. The one thing the arrest did trigger was a "moment of clarity" for NASCAR itself.

Now, Mr. France and the NASCAR executives are very slowly coming out of "denial" and being forced to deal with the reality of addiction for the first time. We wish them luck in their recovery.

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25 comments:

Ken
said...

I would make the drug policy simple. I would have a mandatory drug test for any driver that either wrecks or wins. If you do it with no exceptions and it is administered independently with the tester having no idea as to who the test is for, it would be seen as fair (as if that ever mattered to NA$CAR).

If you test after a cash, that isn't doing much for prevention. It's a little late. Most large company's have random drug testing. Even for people who sit at a desk for a living.

It would seem to me that what the driver's do for a living poses a bit more danger working under the influence of drug's. A few of the team owner's have said they have testing, but not what type and whom they are testing.

I would think it would be the driver's employer who is responsible for random testing. Just like any other business. Only if there is a hesitance or refusal to do so should NASCAR become involved and basically say "Random test your drivers or your not racing".

This is not the first time that NASCAR has buried its head in the sand. A prime example was the safety issue especially where seat belts were mounted and the issue of the safer barriers and it took the death of Dale Earnhardt to open their eyes. I think it is time that Bryan France got his head out of the sand and really addressed this problema nd it is sad that a few team owners like Kevin Harvick have had to be so vocal int he media to even get NASCAR's attention.

Geez, Making the employer responsible would be the worst possible way to do it. The employer would not disclose a problem for fear of losing their sponsorship and/or their star driver. If they found drug use with one of NA$CAR's "stars" and didn't let him run or gave him other punishment, it would get out immediately.

If NA$CAR did random testing, do you really think it would be random? It has to be something that NA$CAR is unfamiliar with--"SET IN STONE". Maybe it should be set by qualifying. Every 5th or 4th or 8th or some number drawn from a hat after qualifying. That would make it random with no room for fudging.

Who is the guy in the UVA cap, (1st on left)? I think it may be the Busch driver accused a couple of years ago. I am not guessing his name because I don't want to wrongly associate a name I may be incorrect about.

i stated my opinion about nascar's drug testing policy several months ago in the linked blog column when the aaron fike article first appeared. i'm going to sit on my hands untili have the opportunity to read the policy released by helton et. al.

that being said: i continue to have a problem with helton talking about having "alot of latitude" and "we're going to broaden it." what i would suggest is that they work toward removing any ambiguity from the policy, make it consistent in its application and have clear and specific consequences. i'm not hearing that yet: the same soft and fuzzy terms continue to be quoted.

and in all honesty? i don't expect to read that the vague "policy" is being nailed down and will be exceedingly surprised if i do.

it is also pretty damning to me that fike says no one from nascar has been in touch with him since he was suspended. out of sight, out of mind?

hey lisa! fike's been suspended, not banned, by nascar and has been working on getting reinstated by them. he's currently racing usac. that's a whole bunch different than shane hmiel, who's been banned for life and has no chance at ever racing in a nascar sponsored event again (altho' he, too is currently racing.)

given that nascar did not ban him, that he has undergone rehab and is being tested every week, i would have thought nascar would have at the very least kept in touch. guess not.

I've got to kind of agree, I don't see this as a media commentary, but a policy commentary. Either way, I'll bite and see if you understand my point.

NASCAR treads a fine line of mandating its "contestants" and "independent contractors" take drug tests. Think about it this way, you run a construction company and use a labor hall (Labor Ready) for your temporary employee needs. Why would you test those employees at a cost to you when you have no reason to believe the owners wouldn't test their drivers. What I'm getting at on this deal is NASCAR needs to be careful not to slip into a quagmire where the drivers are all of a sudden employees of NASCAR or dare I say, unionize. I don't think the new breed of drivers are as scared of the France family as the older drivers were of Big Bill in the Curtis Turner/Tim Flock/Teamsters days. When a driver 50th in points has winnings of over $750K where's the fear?

Now, that being said, I seriously doubt that Rick Hendrick and his dealerships; Penske and his people; Childress and his vineyard staff do not require drug testing in order to work. I know that for most reputable car dealerships down in Florida, they make you give a hair sample prior to employment. Why wouldn't the owners with so much riding on their reputations, not mandate testing for their crews, from the hauler driver to the stock car driver? NASCAR has had a very charmed life in its nearly 60 years. Between the Grant issue and others like sagging gate numbers, down tv numbers, boring racing, and now drug testing, it would behoove NASCAR to proact instead of sitting back. I know Helton like to say, "We're not going to react for the sake of acting" but to me, doing nothing is a hundred times worse.

Also, John, your shot at the one girl was rather petty. There's not one set way to rehabilitate drug abusers, alcoholics, kleptomaniacs, etc. Some need the nurturing Mother Hen treatment, others need the scared straight approach and there are many other ways people deal with these issues. Just because you have an issue in your family in my humble opinion does not give you the right to lash out at someone like that. I personally think Lisa is right in that Fike will likely be persona non grata in NASCAR garages. You see a big name owner who'd risk it all to sign him up? Hell, these guys won't touch drivers with multiple concussions like a Craven, Steve Park, or Jerry Nadeau, why the hell would they hire a drug addict. You're NEVER a recovered drug addict, just like you're NEVER a recovered alcoholic.

You know damn well NASCAR is a very narrow-minded community and when someone opens pandora's box and breaks the "what goes on in the garage stays in the garage" code, they are dead to everyone in the garage. I'm shocked he got into ARCA, but that's as high as he'll go unless you have an owner with a major set of brass ones

"Think about it this way, you run a construction company and use a labor hall (Labor Ready) for your temporary employee needs. Why would you test those employees at a cost to you when you have no reason to believe the owners wouldn't test their drivers."

Kinda got spun up in my rant. I meant to say why would a construction company test temporary employees, which esentially NASCAR drivers are, when the cost burden should be placed on the team owners?

Maybe Nascar has been waiting for the major players (drivers and crew chiefs) to clean-up first.this might hilight why some drivers and crew chiefs have been acting and performing different lately. JMO